STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014
54
DR Congo: Forced to leave their land – demand
conservation where people matters
A dense, lush, biodiversity-rich contiguous rainforest lies in the Itombwe
mountain range in SouthKivu, on the easternmargins of theDemocratic
Republic of the Congo. It is inhabited by an incredible variety of birds,
reptiles, mammals big and small, and fish in the abundant rivers.
And by men and women whose livelihoods depend on the forest.
Maria Masambi Musenge is a Pygmy woman whose family now lives
in Bionga, a village in the Itombwe range. ‘I used to live in Kahuzi-
Biega’ [Kahuzi-Biega National Park], she explains, ‘but my family was
chased out of the park. We came to Itombwe, where we found an
indigenous community who welcomed us. However, in 2005, they
were forced to flee yet again because of the growing instability in the
area.Thus, they left the heart of Itombwe forest for Bionga. Maria’s
story is sadly only one of many.
The village of Bionga, sits at the edge of the forest in the Mwenga sector,
just a few kilometres away from the road that connects the shores of Lake
Kivu to the southwest. It is a ‘mixed’ village where local majority Bantu
communities live in the hilly terrain with alongside the indigenous
Pygmy population, who have had to leave their lands in the forest.
‘I used to live in the forest, it was a good place. I had everything I needed
for my life: animals, plants and respect from other communities. But
after the armed groups arrived, I had to leave the forest’, confessed
Muganza Mukuninua, president of the indigenous community of
Bionga. Conflicts between various armed groups are a threat to the
people – especially the indigenous groups who used to live deeper in the
forest – and the endangered animal species living there. The unstable
situation of South Kivu and the conflicts between Rwandanmilitias and
Congolese armed groups have forced thousands of Pygmies to leave
the dense forest and settle in more accessible villages, for protection.
The establishment of protected forest areas and political instability are
the main reasons for the internal displacement of Pygmies in this part
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
A new participatory approach
When the Itombwe Protected Area was set up in 2005 by the Congolese
conservation authority, a simple announcement meeting was held,
with no prior consultations with indigenous and local communities.
This led to strong local opposition against the project. ‘We feared
that conservation would steal our forests’, explains one member of
the Bionga community. ‘We trusted neither external organizations
nor forest investors.’ ‘We knew very well about the importance of
conservation for the country and for the world. But what was there for us
in all this?’, adds a representative of the community. In the face of such
strong local opposition, the conservation approach had to be changed in
order to incorporate the population – and their traditional conservation
knowledge has proven to be the key to project success. Indeed, the
community knows the forest better than anyone, and is proud of
the expertise of its trailsmen: ‘ICCN (Congolese Institute for Nature
Conservancy) has its forest guards, but we have our own trailsmen (…).
We master the forest. When NGOs come, we can help them identify the
trees, the traditional medicinal plants as well as explain their uses …’
The ‘cadre conjoint’, a consortium consisting of representatives of
the WWF, WCS, the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservancy
(ICCN) and Africapacity, a local civil society organization, was set up
to coordinate participatory activities for defining the outer and inner
boundaries of the protected area and its internal zones. With the input
and support of the ‘comités de base’ (local representative committees),
the communities are actively involved in discussing and defining the
limits of the reserve, making sure that a continuation of their cultural
and socio-economical activities in the forest is guaranteed. ‘We need
to be informed and involved in the decisions made about this forest,
because we depend on it. We live thanks to its meat, fish, caterpillars,
mushrooms, fruits and medicinal plants. We need to be granted
access to these resources’, explains a group of villagers in Bionga.
The information collected by the local cartographers is analysed, and
maps of the reserve are produced. These maps are taken back to the
communities for validation. ‘In the past, conservation methods knew
no local community participation. It was non-existent. But now, local
people are involved. The success of conservation in Itombwe will
depend on the active participation at all stages of the process by the local
and indigenous communities. These communities are ready to pursue
this involvement’, concludes Richard Miniota, territorial president of
the comité de base for Mwenga sector, which includes Bionga.
‘After being chased out from the Kahuzi-Biega park, we went back to
the [Itombwe] forest because that is how we want and need to live.
If the forest disappears, it will be catastrophic’, continues Maria.
Forest conservation and indigenous people’s land rights are the
two key elements in Itombwe. Maintaining an intact forest protects
the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities,
and integrating the traditional knowledge of these indigenous
communities in protected area management contributes to more
efficient conservation.
‘Plants and animals are everything’
As primary users of the rainforest ecosystem and its services,
indigenous peoples and local communities have a deep relationship
with it: they need the forest, and the forest needs them. ‘The forest
gives us medicinal plants, food, wild honey, building material like
lianas, it provides life for the animals we hunt and the plants we gather.
And we also have agricultural fields and fish ponds within the forest’,
